Child soldier.

My thoughts wonder to things we may not wish to know.
If you tender to your gardens, the seeds in good health grow.
Then you can sit back and enjoy the fruits that you sow.
But development for mass benefit in Africa is more then slow.
Left back in time, cloaked in darkness, so greed is the only glow.

A disease, that resides in the human system in need of vaccination.
An undiagnosed cancer, that eats away at my beloved nation.
A child that barely started living, to load the gun is the only education.
Stolen, raped and beaten, crying in the shadows, comforted by starvation.
And if they survive the induction, the front line is the next mission.

Sent in first by the cowards into enemy lines as creeping spies.
No emotions left in that little casing, tears no longer roll down these eyes.
No home left behind, headed in circles all the time, blank gaze of the blind.
Maybe it would have been a blessing not to see, the slaughter of father.
Or the unthinkable way they defiled and mutilate my beautiful mother.

Now I am the one with power, I am the reason why people run for cover.
This is the only existence I know; it would be unreal to imagine another.
Whether its blood diamonds I gather, or a sex slave for the soldier’s pleasure.
This is my world, bullets and blood as I suffer; those I come across pay the piper.



Hamza Egal
Copyright ©2010